Music Programs Question

[Chris]

i know i enjoy hearing mp3 music and i know it's easy to encode it and i know it doesn't put a virus on my computer. i'm happy. what's to do beyond being happy? look at it literally. it makes logical sense and that's all there is to it. everything else is a thought and a saying and not a reality. that's the only thing that's useful and that says anything: the reality of it.

The same exact thing can be said about Vorbis. Here's some things that can be said about MP3, though:
It panders to people trying to capitalize on restricting software ideas.
It's an older, less evolved format (it doesn't support surround sound, unlike Vorbis, and it uses forced bitrates, unless you use the (rarely used) VBR extension (which was created by.. guess? Xiph; the same people who made Ogg)).
It sounds worse at the same bitrates than Vorbis (Vorbis scales really well at lower bitrates, actually.. you'd save disk space and up/download times).

Do you want to know why MP3 still has a strong foothold, despite better technologies? Because of people like you saying "it's good enough". The reality is, it may be "good enough" for now, but when the time comes to press on.. we'll already be there before you start moving again.

[Graf Zahl]

Well said. The downside of this widespread attitude is that I still can't buy a car radio that can play OGG in addition to MP3.

[Phoenix]

i see your points and agree. i wasn't really trying to get specifically at mp3s, but rather being called "ignorant" perhaps made me overreact a bit and not bite my tongue. i mean, this one time before, on another board, i was saying how i used Impulse Tracker and this other guy was going "um dude that sucks, use ModPlug" and basically implying i'm clueless, and seeming to insinuate that somehow whether a song is good depends on the program you use rather than the skill of the tracker. few things in this world piss me off more than that, because of the sheer amount of sense it DOESN'T make. if someone presents some valid points and arguments, then fine. it's when they seem not to be presenting points so much as knocking me for not complying, then i get annoyed.

so, i'm sorry, and i don't think i'll continue this particular line of discussion, as i've said pretty much all i have to say.

[Mr. Tee]

[back_on_topic_for_a_moment]

The problem is... how do you get Impulse Tracker running in Win2000/NT/XP with Extended RAM so that all the samples load?

Have you tried VDMSound? It doesn't just emulate Sound Blaster drivers through Windows, it also fixes some incompatibilities with DOS programs. And DOSBox is a complete DOS emulator that can also do sound and graphics output.

Yes, I've tried EVERYTHING to no avail...

VDMSound is great, but it cannot emulate Extended Memory on newer hardware (has to do with memory blocks already being used or something like that...). The author says he can't (won't?) fix it.

DOSBox is cool as well, except you need a super computer to get Impulse Tracker running properly without jumps or skips (I've spent hours adjusting and tweaking every possible parameter). Sometimes it'll just stall all together.

[/back_on_topic_for_a_moment]

[Chris]

DOSBox is cool as well, except you need a super computer to get Impulse Tracker running properly without jumps or skips (I've spent hours adjusting and tweaking every possible parameter). Sometimes it'll just stall all together.

What kind of computer do you have? The speed emulation setting is going to be the biggest problem. At the default speed, it's slow. But if you set it to high, it crimps and slows down horrendously. So you can compare, I have Strife running and playable in DOSBox on my 1.1GHz machine. This is what I have the [cpu] section set to:

Code: Select all

core=normal
cycles=5000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

If I put cycles any higher than that, the system starts stuttering and I get poorer performance. This is my [mixer] settings:

Code: Select all

nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=4096
prebuffer=20

Yeah, you'll only get 22khz sound, but I think it's a worthy sacrifice for the speed gain. Also, make sure to turn off the pcspeaker emulation. That's a real killer.

[sirjuddington]

Hmm how do you get doom running in the latest dosbox anyway? For me it just hangs at DMX_Init.

For tracking I used to use Impulse Tracker, until winXP. Now I use ModPlug and it's fine for me (I never really use special effects anyway).

Lexus: Is there any way to get Logic to record from line-in? I wanted to use it to record songs but it's rather confusing. So for now I'm using Adobe Audition, which records from line-in fine, but lacks the count-in-before-recording feature of Logic which would be extremely useful

[leileilol]

MP3 is evil. You don't see OGG everywhere because they haven't even heard of it.

[wildweasel]

CheapAlert: The sad part is, I've actually seen a computer that ended up like that.

[HotWax]

The sad part is whoever installed that shit and doesn't run Ad-Aware once a week. That banner fails to prove anything except that Firefox users are petty.

[Killo Zapit]

Best tracker ever: Impulse Tracker.
Best music program period ever: Buzz.

… To bad buzz only spits out some funky format of it’s own, needs endless plug-ins for any song to work, and generally is only useful for making MP3s or OGGs. I yearn for the day when a Multiplatform .PSF format derivative tracker in the vain of Buzz comes out.

[Lexus Alyus]

Heh, you my friend are ignorant . Everyone knows that everyone is ignorant . Sorry 'bout that... I promise I won't call anyone ignorant again , Except Killo that is... the best music program period is Pro Tools, and that's a fact .

Anyway, Logic is dead easy to set the record path... well, you have to guess basically... unless you knew exactly what input it is. All you do is go to the channel strip in the environment editor, find the audio channel you want and then go to the INPUT box that is under the auxilary sends. You click that and select an input channel... It usually helps if you get your recording source to play constantly so you can see when you select the right one (when you get a signal).

Logic can record from any input you have, it can also play to any output you have (if you have a multiple I/O Sound Card that is). It's a professional piece of software so it has tonnes of features designed around analogue mixing consoles... this can be a bit daunting at first, but once you get to know the basics then anything is possible... and you know the geeatest thing? Programs like Logic, Cubase, Sonar and Pro Tools let you work the way you want to work without imposing any restrictions... you can do anything with these prgrams! . And, with logic you can also add or sync audio to video .

I'll attach a screenshot to show what I mean .

Wow, I have 10 inputs... wonder where all the connections are... Shit, it's not the arrainge page you need to open, it's the environment .

[Risen]

The sad part is whoever installed that shit and doesn't run Ad-Aware once a week. That banner fails to prove anything except that Firefox users are petty.

I don't run ad-aware ever.
That's because I don't need it: I'm a Firefox user.

[Graf Zahl]

Are you sure of that? Most of the adware and spyware that ever invaded my computer (not that it was much) was installed as a hidden part of some shareware I tried out. I never saw any website install malicious content on my computer. I'm mostly using IE. These problems are not caused by specific browsers but instead by the carelessness of the users who install every crap they find.
The worst thing that got ever to remain undetected on my computers have been some cookies - and I don't see anything in Firefox that could block them better. I have a popup filter installed that works rather well in eliminating unwanted cookies but now and then a few silip through anyway.

This Firefox vs. IE war is as idiotic as the Linux vs. Windows war. And both campaigns are mostly led by the non-Microsoft faction!

[Risen]

You obviously do not do much site development!
If you only knew the amount of bugs in IE's CSS implementation, (while it says it supports the standard,) then you would know why Firefox is so important.

I agree that the best thing you can do for security is not be an idiot, but we both know that's just not practical for a lot of the population.

[leileilol]

The worst thing that got ever to remain undetected on my computers have been some cookies - and I don't see anything in Firefox that could block them better.

Ever bothered finding the "Only allow cookies from originating site" check box?